Nuclear Waste Disposal

Comments (0)

Transcript of Nuclear Waste Disposal

Nuclear Waste DisposalFirst of all...WHAT is Nuclear Waste?Nuclear Power Plants fission uranium (found in pellets) to produce electricityIn a nuclear reaction, uranium splits into various smaller elementsSome of these elements in the pellets remain radioactive for thousands of yearsOntario is the home of three nuclear power generating station:DarlingtonPickeringBruceCurrently, the nuclear waste (used-up pellets) are stored in a short-term facility in Bruce CountyALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONSReprocessingGeological Repositorymost effective method that can be employed in Canadaburying it deep underground and away of human contactcan be safely contained and isolated for thousands of yearsCanada already has a proposed plan...Ontario Power Generation's Deep Geological Repositoryproposed site is in Tiverton, will be located 680 metres undergroundlimits movement of radioactivity, as the surrounding rock is ancient and is predicted to be stable for 100, 000, 000's of yearslarge natural barriers isolate it from Lake Huron, preventing the likelihood of nuclear leakage from water leachingHOWEVERCanadian government has been stallingthe process of operation has not startednext step is to submit the Environmental Assessment Report to the Federal Minister of the EnvironmentNuclear Energy currently supplies over 50% of Ontario's electrical needsQUICK FACTShort-term Storage of Nuclear WasteProblems with Short-term Storagepostponing a problem that will inevitably need to be dealt withit is TEMPORARY, not built to withstand many yearsleaks may occurTransmutationSpace DisposalGeological RepositoryReprocessingextracting useful components from nuclear wasteseparates plutonium and uranium from the waste to be reused in a specific nuclear reactorsreprocessing plants can be found in France, United Kingdom, and RussiaTransmutationconverting a chemical element to anotherchanges the atomic number can change radioactive products in waste into a less radioactive elementsSpace Disposalplacing nuclear waste on a space shuttle and launching it into space, removing it from the Earth's atmosphere however, the amount that can be carried is not sufficientdanger of a problem occuring during space shuttle launchpossibility of re-entering back as a meteoriteWe need to bring awareness to this to encourage the government to continue with its proposed plan!#letstalklongtermBy: Aliaa Sidawi